When talking about cycling products designed for women, there are typically three big sticking points. The first is that not all women are the same, so why design a product that assumes they are? The second is that because of consumer demand – and the sheer cost of designing and producing these products – there's often a distinct lack of availability at the high end of the performance spectrum.
Third, while some companies have forged into exciting new territory with their designs for different body shapes and riding styles, there are a lot of companies, and people, who are yet to get on board. Companies that claim women’s specificity, without any real research or design characteristics that genuinely improve women’s riding experiences, can do more harm than good.
These sticking points have made ‘women’s-specific’ one of cycling’s more confusing – and sometimes infuriatingly misleading – buzz phrases. For a tag that's trying to capture something specific, it can be remarkably vague.
ADVERTISEMENT
Still, over the last 20 years, we have moved from a few options for women’s clothing and saddles to an increasingly refined range of equipment, clothing and accessories. And the more we learn, the better placed we are to understand the reasons some unisex products are better suited to women’s riding demands than others.
So how did we get this far? And where to from here? We talked to staff from Liv, Specialized, Trek and Yeti, as well as professional cyclists Tiffany Cromwell and Peta Mullens, and asked for their thoughts on the current wave of research, innovation and designs for women.
While change is slower at the top end, Velocio-SRAM racer and cycling clothing designer, Tiffany Cromwell, sets this is the context of of the impact of the women’s shift for riders more generally.
You can read more at BikeRadar.com
via BikeRadar All the latest from BikeRadar.com http://ift.tt/1ALG8AL
No comments:
Post a Comment